The article said his hands were up. I’m only going by what is in the article.
I understand shooting someone if they have a weapon. But there was no indication that a weapon was present. This sounds more like “He wasn’t following my commands so I shot him”.
“The article said his hands were up”
“I’d hate to think I would be shot for trying to hide my weed.”
These two statements don’t fit together very well. He can’t have been shot both while his hands were up and also while he was ‘hiding weed’. It has to be one or the other.